Wednesday, October 31, 2007

We Republican women are far, far too smart to fall for Hillary Clinton's ruse. We are not the mindless ninnies that vote with the Special-Interest Express. We think for ourselves and vote for the candidate of our choice based on merit. We cast our precious votes for the candidate we believe would be the best President, not the one with an "emotional" appeal aimed at our womanhood.

I'd love to vote for a woman for POTUS. Just not THAT woman. Even if some joker made her the Mary Louise Smith Chair at ISU...Smith was "socially liberal" for the 70s, but she wasn't a socialist.

When I attended Elizabeth Dole's Mary Louise Smith lecture in 1999, I was hoping she'd announce she was running. She didn't that day, but it was still exciting. Yeah, she was married to a Senator, but she had a long career in Washington and with the Red Cross. Certainly better qualifications than "was married to a President before buying a Senate seat in a state where she did not reside."

Previously, pumpkins had been considered an edible squash and exempted from the tax. The department ruled this year that pumpkins are taxable — with some exceptions — if they are advertised for use as jack-’o-lanterns or decorations.

Iowans planning to eat pumpkins can still get a tax exemption if they fill out a form.

They're not entirely wrong--the orange pumpkins aren't very good for cooking and eating--but the "fill out a form" just trips my Unnecessary BS Meter. WTF business is it of the state what I do with a vegetable when I take it home?? I use them to grow fuzzy mold colonies, but they're still vegetables...

The state is collecting 20-40 cents on each pumpkin. The cost of processing the form (nevermind the cost of creating it and distributing it to retailers) is going to exceed the---OH. YEAH. They expect most people (including the retailers) to be ignorant of the procedure and/or too busy to get their dollar back (or too polite to hog a cashier lane filling out the form at Hy-Vee on a Saturday morning while a line forms behind them).

* The buyer completes a sales tax exemption certificate stating they will be used as food, or * The pumpkins are a specific variety used to make pumpkin pies and are advertised in that way, or * They are purchased with Food Stamps.

It's OK to use taxpayer money to pay for your decorations; people using their own money to buy a pumpkin must be taxed.

And if food isn't really a food unless it's eaten, I expect to see a tax on cucumbers and bananas used in sex classes, eggs used for vandalism, and all those government surplus carrots in school lunchroom garbage cans (the barrel where we dumped our uneaten slop in elementary school still haunts me).

After reading Dr. Sanity for lo these many years, I think I've learned a thing or two about psychological defenses. Particularly The Wonderful World of Denial.

It works so well for moonbats I've decided to give it a try: I'll be employing them the rest of the week, in case I need to use them for real later on. New England Patriots? Never heard of them, are they a baseball team?

I just expect ESPN to show the football game being played live in front of them instead of a Lifetime Original Movie about high school sweethearts and breast cancer.

Apparently this is too much to ask.

Yes, I know I'm the only straight woman in Wisconsin who would rather watch Jay Cutler throw to Brandon Stokely than look at Brett Favre's wedding pictures (there may be someone who wanted to see AJ Hawk in action instead of prom pics from 1987; I would like to meet her). If it was a local broadcast, I would understand the market strategy. But ESPN is a national network broadcasting to fans of all 32 teams. They own several 24-hr sports stations and they're affiliated with ABC and several other networks; surely they could have found a way to air The Brett and Deanna Love Story AND show the Packers-Broncos game in its entirety.

I don't want to see The Peyton and Ashley Love Story instead of Tom Brady getting sacked on Sunday, either; fortunately CBS usually manages to keep the sideshows on the side. Their problem is they can't keep Phil Simms from verbally fellating Brady for four hours. :P

Monday, October 29, 2007

I met Jonah Goldberg after he gave a talk at UW in March; that's about the time I decided I should write my own blog instead of just commenting on others.

Anyway, a few hours later I was poking around the Des Moines Register to see if they've mentioned Dallas Clark or Sage Rosenfels, and I found an article about the Dodd ad. The owner of the barbershop where it was filmed is a Republican, and I can't believe I forgot to mention the slam on Silky Pony's haircuts!

Mostly I was bummed I didn't see any Fred signs. Or anti-Hillary signs.

Thursday, October 25, 2007

The guy who beat his sick dog to death with a baseball bat--said he didn't have the $50 or so for euthanasia and didn't bother to check the Humane Society for a reduced-price option--was charged with felony animal abuse. Bail $500; maximum sentence 3.5 years in prison and $10k fine. I'm sure he'll plead guilty to a lesser charge in return for probation. Still, could have saved himself some cash by not being an asshole.

No doubt you and I will get to pay for his defense lawyer, just like we pay for lawyers for all the scum who beat people to death.

Interestingly, was talking about this at lunch at work yesterday with a couple of guys who grew up on farms, who wondered why he didn't take the dog out back and shoot it. Merciful and cheap, and probably also illegal in Cudahy.

Wednesday, October 24, 2007

Check out the pictures of Laura Bush on a visit to the Middle East at A Tangled Web. I'm pleased she didn't succumb to the pressure to cover any more of herself than American standards of decency require (unlike, oh, say, Nancy Pelosi and Julia Carson).

The part that slays me is the multicultural apologists who say these women are just "modestly dressed" and it's better than the alternative, which is to dress like Paris Hilton/Britney Spears. That's always the example of the alternative to the burqa. So much for "liberals" being better at tolerating ambiguity and flexibility...millions of women around the world go out every day dressed neither like streetwalkers nor like slipcovered furniture--and I'm sure there are "sex workers" who wear more clothes to the office than Ms. Spears. I'm always "modestly dressed" in jeans and T-shirts or sweatshirts, but since my hair and face are always visible, and occasionally my arms show above the wrists, I'd be at risk for an arrest and/or beating. Even though, believe you me, the "passions" of straight men are not "enflamed" by the sight of my hair.

The Dalai Lama, 72, is scheduled to deliver 12 hours of teachings and two public speeches this week. His 15-minute chat Tuesday was a teaser he used to talk about the world’s religious diversity.

It was an appropriate topic for an interfaith service that featured a procession of Buddhist monks and Dominican friars, recitations from Jewish, Christian, Hindu and Sikh scriptures and a prayer from a pipe-smoking Shoshone sun dance chief.

“There are differences. But these differences have the same purpose — to strengthen and educate us on the importance of compassion,” he said. “All religions use different methods and different ways of approach. But they have the same end.”

Maybe, at the level of the individual believer and his relationship to the divine. But on the earthly level, one religion has very different goals than the others. If you can cite a authentic text where the Buddha tells a devotee to kill the unbelievers where he finds them, or that he wants his followers to conquer neighboring territories until the whole world is united under a global Buddhaphate, I'll buy you a beer.

The concept of war in the name of faith, he said, brings sadness to God.

Unlike God, Allah demands war in his name.

“True followers of God must express compassion.

“The concept of war is out of date,” he said. “Killing your neighbor is not your victory but your mutual self destruction.”

Nice philosophy. Lousy national defense policy. If you roll over for the neighbors bent on destroying you for the glory of Allah, the self-destruction is pretty one-sided.

The whole thing reminds me of the Mark Steyn column where he noted that if a military power ever tried to actually free Tibet from the ChiComs, all the "Free Tibet" bumperstickers would be replaced overnight with "Invaders out of Tibet Now!" stickers.

I probably have more to say, but I have to go to work so I can pay for worthless shit around Wisconsin. Looks like brewpubs got the shaft yesterday, too. Apparently the state legislature wants to encourage folks to drink and drive, instead of getting a growler to take home.

Tuesday, October 23, 2007

The really sad part is the Wisconsin Humane Society or any veterinarian would try to work something out cheap/free, if you take the time to call and ask, just to end the dog's suffering as kindly as possible.

Every morning about 4:30 I tell Satan's Little Helper I'm going to sell him to a tennis racket factory if he doesn't knock off the !#*^% pouncing and meowing and let me sleep, but seriously, this close to Halloween we don't even go outside with the leash (we don't really "walk"; I follow along as he investigates the hedge and yank him back when he runs toward the street), in case he gets away and ends up in the hands of assholes.

And I should not have looked at the WHS's available cats. There's a fine line between "old maid with cat" and "ammonia-scented crazy cat woman" I'm trying to avoid crossing.

Saturday, October 20, 2007

I missed it; I was at a luncheon in Bay View for a co-worker I don't like all that much (and even less now).

I was really surprised by all the businesses on Kinnickkinnick; when I first started coming to MKE in 1998, I got dragged out to the Collector's Edge periodically, and it was the only open-looking storefront in a scary neighborhood of abandonment. Now there's coffee and antiques and tanning everywhere. On the way home I stopped at Downtown Books; I bought a German translation of Gone With the Wind. It's good to have goals.

Coach Dungy talks to Phil B of the IndyStar. Seems like Whitlock didn't get his "whitening" numbers correct, and I'm not sure Coach is up on the history of hip-hop, but otherwise no surprises. He's a better man than I am--same thoughts, less harsh words.

Don't read the comments--Baltimore fans are still behaving like spoiled children, even after the former Cleveland Browns' ignominous performance in last year's playoffs--but enjoy this article about Peyton Manning nearing Johnny U's franchise TD record. Especially the bit at the end where former players speculate about Peyton's parentage. I thought he sprang fully-grown from Zeus' forehead...

African-American football players caught up in the rebellion and buffoonery of hip hop culture have given NFL owners and coaches a justifiable reason to whiten their rosters. That will be the legacy left by Chad, Larry and Tank Johnson, Pacman Jones, Terrell Owens, Michael Vick and all the other football bojanglers.

"Bojanglers" is one of those words I wish I was allowed to use. It's succinctly descriptive. But I don't believe anyone intentionally sets out to "whiten their rosters."

In terms of opportunity for American-born black athletes, they're going to leave the game in far worse shape than they found it.

It's already starting to happen. A little-publicized fact is that the Colts and the Patriots — the league's model franchises — are two of the whitest teams in the NFL. If you count rookie receiver Anthony Gonzalez, the Colts opened the season with an NFL-high 24 white players on their 53-man roster. Toss in linebacker Naivote Taulawakeiaho "Freddie" Keiaho and 47 percent of Tony Dungy's defending Super Bowl-champion roster is non-African-American. Bill Belichick's Patriots are nearly as white, boasting a 23-man non-African-American roster, counting linebacker Tiaina "Junior" Seau and backup quarterback Matt Gutierrez.

Racial classifications are so silly. Gonzalez is Cuban-American; most surveys wouldn't consider him white, depending on what kind of point they wanted to make (he's also the next Marvin Harrison). He didn't mention how he classified Ramon Guzman...and I will buy a beer for anyone who can pronounce Freddy Keiaho's given name.

But it's not really about skin color or family name, other than race is the current, overused, (inaccurate) proxy for "culture":

Hip hop athletes are being rejected because they're not good for business and, most important, because they don't contribute to a consistent winning environment.

You don't say.

We are in the process of mishandling the opportunity and freedom earned for us by Jim Brown, Walter Payton, Doug Williams, Mike Singletary, Gale Sayers, Willie Lanier and countless others. And those of us in the media who have rationalized, minimized and racialized every misstep by Vick, Pacman and T.O. have played an equal role in blowing it.

It's so rare to see anyone in media accept blame for the role the media plays in redefining dysfunctional behavior as "just part of their culture."

By failing to confront and annihilate the abhorrent cultural norms we have allowed to grab our youth, we have in the grand American scheme sentenced many of them to hell on earth (incarceration), and in the sports/entertainment world we've left them to define us as unreliable, selfish and buffoonish.

Straight from Bill Cosby and Juan Williams. It's just shocking to hear it applied to professional football, to black men who have supposedly "made it", and to an occupation that's 70% black.

Hip hop is the dominant culture for black youth. In general, music, especially hip hop music, is rebellious for no good reason other than to make money. Rappers and rockers are not trying to fix problems. They create problems for attention.

That philosophy, attitude and behavior go against everything football coaches stand for.

If the piece was just an indictment of the hip-hop culture and its detrimental effects on NFL teams (not to mention its detrimental effects on black men who couldn't play at that level), why start off with complaining about rosters with white guys at the start of the essay? And why, for the love of all that does not suck, the unsubstantiated unnecessary suggestion at the end that Tom Brady and Peyton Manning are racists???

Whether calculated or not, the Patriots and the Colts have created settings in which Brady and Manning can lead and feel comfortable.

Is that the spoonful of sugar to help the medicine go down??

I'm also going to deduct style points for using the word "buffoon" three times in one essay.

Got an e-mail from my cousin letting me know that Rockwell Collins in Cedar Rapids is hiring a skazillion engineers. I might need a new job in a few months (I've already ridden a 12-month contract 18 months) but I don't want to go back to being the only never-married non-mother non-lesbian over 25 living in the state. Milwaukee has its downsides but at least people ask me what I do instead of my children.

On the other end of the spectrum, middle-school students getting hormonal birth control without the knowledge of their parents. I spent my afternoon imagining scenarios where any of the kids I know would be 11 or 13 and asking me about ANY birth control and every single one of them involves me calling their parents (several of them also involve beating the crap out of someone). I'm not anti-pill--if someone wants to put their young daughter on birth control pills for a non-medical reason, that's their prerogative as a crappy parent--but I'm very against government agencies going behind parents' backs, and especially when there are potentially dangerous physical consequences.

The Packers have a bye and the Colts play Monday. What am I going to DO this weekend?

Ann Coulter today reminds me of an incident at UIowa (recently the subject of some articles about lack of diversity in hiring) when I was in high school. Black dental students received violent threats. Uproar ensued, until they discovered the perp was...wait for it...a black dental student. My recollection is that she had a legitimate mental illness and hadn't been taking her medication; not exactly the anti-racism warrior the other exemplars are made out to be.

I was going to blog about the latest UIowa flap, but the only way to fix the place is to burn it down and start over.

"Some think the way to beat the Democrats in November is to be more like them. I could not disagree more. I believe that conservatives beat liberals only when we challenge their outdated positions, not embrace them. This is not a time for philosophical flexibility, it is a time to stand up for what we believe in."

Monday, October 15, 2007

Thoroughly enjoyed three days away from a computer. Not sure if the cat is angry I left or angry I came back...

Saturday we were driving down an unnumbered road in the middle of nowhere, central Vermont, and got stuck behind a car going about 20mph...with an Illinois license plate. Felt right at home, I did. !(%#*!

I'm sure I'll be able to get Spotted Cow as long as I live in MKE, and the Sprecher brewery is on the way home from work--yes!--but I do like to try new beers without driving all over the country. And what happens if I move??

Using player bio information at nfl.com and brewers.com, I had a little fun with the calculator.

Brett Favre, at his listed stats, has a BMI of 28.5, which is on the high side of "overweight." Peyton and Eli Manning are both "overweight" at 27.5; Joseph Addai is pushing "obese" at 29.8; Ben Sheets isn’t far off at 29.0; and Prince Fielder’s 35.3 gets him packed off to a re-education camp.

The Prince does get thrown out a lot on double plays. But don't tell me any of those QBs are fat.

Tuesday, October 9, 2007

I joined Goodreads today. This could be time-consuming, or it could go the way of mycolts.net, I don't know.

I'm going to Vermont this weekend (nonstop, all hail Midwest) for the first time--I expect it will be culturally similar to Wisconsin, with taller rocks--and I could use some suggestions for something to read on the plane. I've already read An Arsonist's Guide to Writer's Homes in New England. Plenty of good tips in that one.

I have no idea about a hostess gift, either. I'm out of Iowa chops, and WI is problematic: can't get beer on the plane, no point in taking cheese. I'm down to honey (in 3 oz or smaller containers, I haven't forgotten what happened when I tried to fly with Play-Doh) or...uh....sausage?

The so-called poor have cars and cable tv and free medical. They live in America in the 21st century, where school is free and libraries are free and a bus ticket to a better town costs less than a bag of crack. If they're "poor" it's because they were too lazy and stupid to a) finish high school and/or b) keep their pants on. Jesus had something to say about folks who didn't properly manage their money or other people's, and who squandered free gifts and good will. He told the adulteress to sin no more, not to find herself another baby daddy.

I was going to post my own thoughts, but they're not original and I have to go to work.

It's worth noting that all the girls in my HS class who had babies the summer after graduation are doing much better than I am--husbands who make enough money that they can stay home with their younger children, new houses, newer cars than I drive--and that's not counting the social capital automatically granted to mothers, even in stupid situations. Especially in stupid situations.

I'd like to be the first to propose another 3/5 compromise. Illegal aliens can be counted as 3/5 a person in exchange for building the damn fence and stepping up other enforcement efforts. I think that's fair--the DNC gets 60% of the number of people the Census Bureau can find and ICE can't. Of course, that would only work if ICE was trying to find/process people....sigh.

Given all the pathetic, quasi-legal bribery the City of Ames did in 2000 to try to convince kids in dorms and graduating seniors to fill out census forms to be counted as permanent residents (that roommate who dropped out and went home, they count, too!) to qualify for more federal dollars, I don't feel a whole lot of love for the accuracy of people self-reporting to the Census Bureau (1 out of every 500 teenagers is a widow? in 2000??), much less the reports filed by people out looking for people to report on (see also ACORN).

Plus, it'll be fun to watch all the talking heads and lockstep lemmings pretend they've heard of the original 3/5 compromise.

I agree that the city police have better things to do than to do ICE's work for them. But why wait until someone gets killed before turning over a name? They've been making a big deal all summer about making thousands of "citizen contacts", I'm sure they've turned up a few people who aren't supposed to be living here, why sit on this information? Given that thousands of people are killed every year by unlicensed illegal-alien drivers, I don't think it's at all unreasonable to pass on the alleged addresses of people without a valid license to ICE to ignore them as they see fit.

As illegal immigration has grown into a national issue the past couple of years, stepped-up enforcement efforts have produced deportation stories that rankled immigrant rights groups.

In 2004, a Waukesha County mother of two was sent back to India after she got a flat tire and police officers discovered that she had entered the United States illegally 12 years earlier.

Very sad for her, but the police officers did not put a gun to her head in 1996 and force her onto a plane without the proper approval.

(The J-S article used the phrase "illegal immigrant"? Someone's gonna get fired.)

Sunday, October 7, 2007

I'm disappointed Marvin's consecutive-games-with-receptions streak ended, but he's got two weeks to heal before Jacksonville, which is a) important and b) on MNF.

I've been indefinitely banned from watching football with the Real Men of Genius because the Colts have won more games than all of their teams put together--Jets (1), Dolphins (0), Rams(0), Broncos(2), and Bears(1). Heh. I didn't tell them I'm out of town the next three weekends anyway.

The stat I find interesting: the Colts are 4-0 against teams with starters who have Colts Super Bowl rings.

I'm getting a kick out of all the people complaining about how the Wisconsin football team suh-diddly-ucks this year. Top 25, lost one conference game...y'all wouldn't know suck if it walked up wearing blaze orange and popped a cap in Bucky's ass (now there's a mixed metaphor).Here's some 99.44% pure, home-grown, corn-fed suck, for comparison.

It doesn't really bother me; I feel bad for Bret Meyer because he's a better QB than the record indicates, and I thought Chizik was too negative about the players at the halftime interview (at the post-game interview he blames the coaching, someone must have called him on it), but anyone who watched ISU football before the 2000 season just nods and hopes Kansas has a bad day so we at least get one conference win. When I say we suck, I'm about as emotional as I am when I say the sun came up this morning.

Saturday, October 6, 2007

The whole idea that you have to try something before making a judgment is moral laziness. This refusal to say something is wrong because you're trying to keep an open mind prevents you from seeing what's wrong with the world - or more important other cultures. Female Circumcision strikes me as wrong - but I don't need my clitoris removed to find out.... I find the whole idea of prison rape to be reprehensible. But I've never experienced that either.

He's right for the most part; I know a lot of women who went directly from their parents' house to marriage (via an all-women dorm) and I'm not allowed to point out their lack of experience with the old-maid-with-cat lifestyle when they sneer at it...and I'm not allowed to question their smugness about marriage, either.

I've also noticed people aren't even allowed to judge some stuff they may have tried and later realized was wrong, with the following exceptions: smoking, eating meat, being 'overweight' (see Mike Huckabee's plan to force us all to live his new lifestyle), driving a car (see al-Gore).

The Zombster has a zillion disclaimers: The pictures from the Folsom Street Fair can be considered hard-core pornography (and Zombietime is experiencing heavy traffic; expect long load times). I admire Zombie's willingness to wade into the frays and the thoroughness of Zombie's reports (I think I know what pronoun Zombie takes, but I don't want to accidentally 'out' Zombie's identity). I would have gotten myself kicked out for hurting people's feelings with my cackling Hillaryesque laughter.

Really. The religious sex toys were disgusting (no Mohammed-shaped sex toys, I wonder why...), but mostly they all look kinda pathetic. Look at me! Look at me! Look at me!!! I'm so EDGY!!! LOOK AT ME!!!

(...says a chick with a blog. Ow.)

Dunno; if they were trying to shock right-wing cranks in flyover country, they failed. The "fetish lifestyle" is so mainstream anymore...CSI (I only watch the original) regularly has plots featuring extreme BDSM, furries, bloodsports, transvestites, perverting religious symbols, Elvisexuals, did I mention extreme BDSM? These poor deluded fools think they're being counter-cultural, and they're network TV.

(2)Shall refrain, whenever possible, from making public statements about the troops, their mission or our country that are indistinguishable from statements made by Osama Bin Laden, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad or others who have vowed to destroy the United States of America

(3) Shall refrain from introducing legislation that would impede or impair the ability of our troops to defeat our enemies or that exceeds the powers granted to Congress under Article I Section 8 of the Constitution

Wednesday, October 3, 2007

Since I got home from work, I've had four otherwise rational people rant at me about how Bush hates children. They want free healthcare for their kid (because they deserve it, simply by virtue of spawning in the first place) and that mean child-hating bastard vetoed the bill that would give it to them.

They had no idea that the bill had provisions providing free insurance to non-poor non-children, much less that those provisions were added by Dems, and if they would have left well enough alone and just increased the money for poor children by 300% W would have signed the damn thing the way he signs all the big-government big-money bills, but even once I point this out, they don't care! They truly believe George W. Bush wants their child to DIE so he can continue spending billions to kill Iraqi children, too.

My personality disorder is acting up; I told them to move to Canada and let me know how long the wait is to see the allergist.

(My "Beginning German for Adults" class started tonight, so I now know more words than 'Scheiße' and 'Bier', but I'm all self-conscious about how I'm pronouncing all the vowel sounds.)

Tuesday, October 2, 2007

The worst part about living in an apartment is sharing laundry machines with people who are either ignorant of how to launder textiles appropriately or just don't care. If I had a dollar for everytime I opened a washing machine and found a bathroom rug, six bras, four pairs of jeans, AND a king-size sheet set, none of which should be washed together in the first place much less overloaded by that...

Anyway, when you take your clothes out of the dryer, clean the freaking lint trap.

Residents of a 10-unit apartment building evacuated safely when a small dryer fire filled the structure with smoke early today on Milwaukee's northwest side.

Milwaukee police said no one was hurt and the fire did only an estimated $100 in damage. The emergency call came in about 3 a.m. from 7105 N. Teutonia Ave., police said.

The suspected cause was a build up of lint inside the dryer, police said.

There were a couple of dryer fires around the city about this time last year that caused serious damage. I'm not just an old crank--I'm an old crank who doesn't want to get woken up and forced outside at 3 a.m.

I'll let everyone else handle the outrage about dressing babies up like a sex slave. Here's the comment that rankled in the original linked article:

Fathers Gary Beuschel and John Kruse watched over them closely. They were proud to show the twins off.

“They will see more than the kids with moms and dads in Iowa,” said Beuschel, who wanted to expose his children to San Francisco's diverse community.

"Exposing" your 2-year-old children to sexual fetishes is not a good thing no matter where you live. That really should go without saying.

They always go for the cheap slam of the Midwest, like your longitude is a marker of your worth as a person. Unoriginal.

On top of being a shitty parent and a drone, he's also ignorant. I've seen people exposing their small children to BDSM-type fetish stuff in Iowa City, which is, surprise, in Iowa.

5-10 years ago I used to attend a yearly gathering in Iowa City of people from an online community. Some of them would wear their BDSM gear to the park, and most of them would bring their children. I didn't actually see anyone masturbating, but people dropping their pants to show off new piercing was pretty common, as was leading people around on leashes and floggings. One guy made a hobby of getting a picture of every participant wearing handcuffs (there are probably still some of me, wearing handcuffs and looking annoyed; fortunately most of them are 404). One year there was a donkey. I've suppressed the rest of that story.

Not only did no one stop to think, "Maybe I should leave the kid with Grandma for the afternoon," no one stopped to think, "Maybe all these other parents using the park don't want to see the man in the fishnets lick my naked boobies." Well, I did, but I didn't have any influence over this group.

I don't even want to know what went on at some of the private after-hours parties.

So that's why I KNEW people were going to be bringing their kids to this thing in San Francisco. I understand these people. They've all got huge empty places inside and they do stupid shit to get attention to try to fill it.

Oh, and my sisters tell me that children over 2 years should not still be drinking out of a bottle.

Another drunk "college kid" died in the Mississippi River while drinking in LaCrosse over the weekend.

The incident marked the second straight year that a drowning occurred during the city's initial Oktoberfest weekend. Exactly one year ago Sunday, University of Wisconsin-La Crosse student Luke Homan disappeared after a night of drinking. His body was found two days later in the Mississippi River.

Homan, 21, became the eighth college-age man since 1997 to turn up dead in a river after going missing from a tavern. The deaths led to persistent rumors of a serial killer roaming the area, but police and the FBI continue to insist there is no evidence to suggest the deaths were anything but accidents.

Last year when this happened, there were several "town meetings" to discuss the "epidemic" and how to stop it. Telling kids to stop binge drinking by the river wasn't on the table--townspeople wanted increased nighttime patrols in the area, free cab rides, big fences, etc. Great ideas, except it looks like they didn't work. I suggested filling in the river--yeah, it might slow down some barge traffic, but aren't the lives of these "good young men" worth economically crippling neighboring states? The only way to keep drunk "kids" out of the river is to remove the river.

Blaming Oktoberfest seems disingenuous; it's not like there's no binge drinking the other 51 weekends a year.

Anyway, I feel really bad for their mothers. While the sad fact that sperm has never hit my eggs makes me unable to comment on anyone else's children (or so I'm told, daily), I can imagine that it must hurt like hell when someone knocks on the door to tell you that the baby you carried for 9 months has killed himself by his own stupidity.

Maybe Congressional committees should be randomly assigned every two years, so senators are more equal. Some people might become proficient in one area after forty years of writing the legislations, but most of them don't seem to be doing any better now than they did in the 60s. Pathetically few Congress members had a real job (and most of them were lawyers) before their first elected position back home, so most of them can't claim a science, technology, education, business, medicine, etc background that would make them more suited for one committee than another. A couple of exceptions--Tom Coburn was a practicing obstetrician until the Senate made him quit seeing patients on breaks--but not enough exceptions to make the current practice the best practice.